Choose the Story Only You Can Tell
How to decide which story idea to write comes down to one test: pick the idea where you have something to say, where you are the right person to say it, and where you can say it in one line. Keep the idea that passes all three. Drop the ones that only look like a good film.
This piece is for the writer who already has ideas. Two, three, maybe a notebook full. If you are still looking for your first one, start with Likhne Ka Shauk Hai, Par Kya Likhun? Find Your First Story in Your Own Gully and come back here when you have a few.
Three ideas, one notebook, no decision
Picture a writer in Bhopal with three ideas. A heist in a sugar mill. A love story between two coaching-centre teachers in Kota. A story about her grandfather, who closed his tailoring shop the year she was born and never told anyone why.
Most writers in her place reach for the heist. It has a genre. It has a poster in it. The grandfather story has nothing but a feeling she can't shake.
Now ask her what each one is about. On the heist, she will describe the plan. On her grandfather, she will talk for ten minutes and then go quiet. I have seen that pattern across many tables, and the silence usually tells you which one to write.
How to decide which story idea to write
Navjot Gulati made the same choice early in his career, and he has been honest about it.
His first feature was Jai Mummy Di (2020), written and directed by Navjot Gulati. In a podcast interview with Vijay Vikram Singh and Versova Hustler, he said his biggest mistake on that launch film was the way he chose the story. He had better stories with him. Instead he picked one for the type of film he wanted to make, and then added masala on top. He said he had nothing to say through it, and that today he could not tell you what the film is about.
Directors rarely say that in public about their own debut. Write it on the first page of your notebook.
Then he described the other way of choosing. The idea for Pooja Meri Jaan came, he said, out of his own life: seven years of loving someone, and slowly realising he had been wrong. Producer Amar Kaushik had turned down his earlier pitches. This one, Kaushik told him, could be made. Gulati said he wrote the first half in four days.
Pooja Meri Jaan premiered on ZEE5 on 2 October 2026. It is directed by Navjot Gulati, written by Navjot Gulati and Kanishka Singh Deo, with screenplay and dialogue also by Niren Bhatt, and produced by Dinesh Vijan and Amar Kaushik. Mrunal Thakur plays Pooja, a woman whose life turns after a suspicious death, and the film asks how people judge each other when the facts are unclear.
Look at the difference. One idea was chosen from the outside: what kind of film do I want to be seen making? The other was chosen from the inside: what do I know that hurts? The first left him with nothing to say. The second gave him a first half in four days and a yes from a producer who had been saying no.
Speed is not the point. Ownership is. When the idea is yours, you are not inventing the emotion scene by scene. You are remembering it.
The three-question test
Put every idea you have through these, in this order.
1. What do I have to say? Not what happens. What you think about it. "A girl leaves her village for Delhi" is a plot. "Leaving home makes you a stranger in both places" is something to say. If you cannot finish the sentence "This story is about how...", the idea is still a situation, not a story. Masala can decorate a point of view. It cannot replace one. I've written more on finding that angle in start with a point of view.
2. Why me? Ask what you know about this story that a writer in Andheri would have to research. Gulati knew his seven years from the inside. The Bhopal writer knows her grandfather's shop, the tailor's chalk, the customers who still come to the door. If ten other writers could write your idea the same way, it belongs to all ten of them. Pick the one that only you could get right.
3. Can I say it in one line? A real idea fits in a sentence: who wants what, what stands in the way, and why it matters. If you need a page to explain it, you haven't found it yet. This is the logline, and there is a full method in how to write a logline. For choosing between ideas, you only need a rough one. The idea that writes its own line easily is usually the one that is ready.
Advertising taught me this long before films did. The weakest pitches usually started with the format: "Let's do a big film with a celebrity." The strong ones started with a truth about the customer. The format came later and fitted itself around the truth. Stories work the same way. Genre is the format. What you have to say is the truth.
I want to write a story. Where should I start?
Start with the idea you can't stop thinking about, even if it looks small.
The myth is that you should start with the idea that sounds commercial, prove yourself, and write the personal one later. In practice the "commercial" idea written by someone with nothing to say rarely ends up commercial. Audiences feel the hollowness even when they can't name it. The personal idea, written with honesty, is the one people pass on.
Small is fine. A grandfather's shop is small. Seven years of one relationship is small. Bada film chhoti si sachchai se hi banta hai.
How to turn a story idea into a script?
Once you have chosen, don't jump to page one. Write the one line. Then write a page on who your main character is and what they want. Then find where it begins and where the middle turns. How to start a screenplay takes you through the opening.
Keep the other two ideas in your notebook. They are not wasted. Sometimes one of them grows a point of view later, and then it is ready too.
Try this
Take your three ideas and put each one through the test. Write the answers down, don't just think them.
For each idea, on one page:
What do I have to say? Finish the sentence "This story is about how..."
Why me? List three things you know about this world that a stranger would not.
One line. Write the logline in under 30 words.
Any idea that fails a question gets crossed out. Keep the one that survives all three. If two survive, pick the one that made you go quiet.
Quick answers
How do you decide which story idea to write first? Choose the idea where you know what you want to say, where your own life gives you an edge, and which fits in one clear line. Drop ideas chosen only because the genre seems to sell.
Should I write the commercial idea or the personal one? Write the one you have something to say about. Navjot Gulati said in a podcast interview that his launch film was chosen for the type of film he wanted to make, while the idea that came from his own life was the one a producer said yes to.
What do I do with the ideas I don't pick? Keep them in a notebook. Revisit them in six months and run the test again; an idea that had nothing to say then may have something now.
Choosing and shaping your first real idea is where we begin in The Foundation of Storytelling, my live online course in Hindi and English.
Send me the one-line version of your three ideas on WhatsApp. I'll tell you which one I'd write first, and why.
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